My boyfriend acquired this week’s t-shirt (very limited edition) at PAX two years ago, where the 1Up Yours guys tossed them to the crowd during their panel. Jeremy (who you can see making fabulous faces in last week’s post) wore it a couple times but gave up on the shirt as workable apparel since it was too short for him. Tall slender people have it so hard.

But you can’t just ditch a one-of-only-X-number-printed t-shirt, especially when it says “Weekend Confirmed.” It would be wrong. Puppies would die in Siberia. Somewhere, the deity of small print-run t-shirts would cry.

So when I started modifying t-shirts, Jeremy gave it to me.

This was a great shirt to play with because it didn’t require very much resizing and because the graphic on the front is fairly small and is placed low enough to accommodate a nice girly scooped neck. Considering the message on the shirt, I decided it needed to be fun. What’s fun? Ruffles are fun.

So, read on and learn how to confirm your weekend. T-shirt.

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What you’ll need:

• a t-shirt – this mod works best with a shirt that is about the right length and just a little too wide and too baggy.

• sewing scissors

• straight pins

• thread that matches your shirt colour

• a sewing machine (sorry, but even with extraordinary time and patience you couldn’t hand stitch the edging on these ruffles)

• [optional] bias binding that matches your t-shirt

Note: Depending on exactly how your t-shirt fits you to start out with, this mod may turn out a little differently for different shirts and different people. It should be cute regardless, but if you’re specifically looking to creat a shirt that covers the shoulders and has that slight capped sleeve look, you’ll need to start with a t-shirt that’s too wide in the shoulders for you. Apart from that specification, you can pretty much do this with whatever shirt you’ve got.

Putting it all together:

1) Turn your t-shirt inside out. Then start by cutting the sleeves off. Do this by cutting right along the inside of the sleeve-to-body seam.

2) Pin the shoulders of the t-shirt together at either edge of the collar. Pin the two sides of the shirt together under the arms and at the shoulders just at the top of the arm hole. Essentially, you are folding the shirt together, so it folds in half along the middle of the back and the middle of the front. This probably makes more sense if you simply look at the picture.

Once those pins are in place, put a couple more in along the folds on the front middle and back middle of the shirt, to keep everything from moving around.

3) Decide how low you want the shirt’s collar to go in the front and back, and make a little mark at these points along the fold lines on the front and back of the shirt. Then decide how far across you want the neckline to be. Make a little mark to the side of the collar for this.

On a light shirt, pencil works for this. On a dark shirt use a white crayon.

4) Draw a curving line from one mark to the next. This is the shirt’s new collar line.

5) Cut along the line you drew.

Your shirt should now look about like this. Now to resize it for a more flattering, shapely fit.

6) Fold your shirt in half (the usual way). Pin it together along the edge.

7) Measure yourself around the waist (this is the “in” bit of the female hourglass figure, right around the bellybutton, not where your pants waist probably sits). Divide this measurement by 4. Measure this final number of inches in from the center fold of the shirt. Make this mark midway up the shirt, about where your waist would be. (It would be wise to add 1/2 inch or so, for breathing room and seam allowance. I didn’t, I should have.)

For example, my waist measures 28 inches, so I measured 7 inches in from the center fold. (Should have made that 7 1/2, though.)

8) From the edge of the shirt under the arms, to the hem of the shirt (perhaps in from the edge an inch or two), draw a line that curves inward at its center to touch the mark you made in step 7.

9) Cut along this line. (Keep the scraps you cut off the edges of the shirt.) Then unfold the shirt and pin the now-open sides together. Sew the shirt’s new sides closed.

Your shirt should now look a bit like this:

10) Now to finish the neck and arm holes. If you wish to use bias binding, continue on to step 7. Otherwise, simply fold the edges of your sleeves and collar to the inside, pin and iron them, and sew them down. Then skip ahead to step 11.

11) To use bias binding, turn your shirt right side out. Take your bias binding and unfold it completely. Now fold over one end of the binding and pin it up against the edge of the new collar line.

Important notes:

• a) Notice how, when the bias binding is folded in half lengthwise, one side is slightly longer than the other. You will want this longer edge to be on the inside of the shirt. Therefor, the shorter edge is the one you want to pin along the collar’s edge in this step.

• b) Be sure the shirt is right side out, and that you are pinning the binding to the outside of the t-shirt – as in the side that has all the printing and such on it! This may seem a bit odd, but it will work out perfectly, trust me.

• c) The key to getting your bias binding to lay flat on your t-shirt is stretching the t-shirt just a bit between each pin. Otherwise the bias binding will bag outward a bit. Which it does on my shirt, and it’s not a huge deal. This takes a bit of practice to get just right. Washing the shirt will also flatten the binding down a bit, as will ironing the collar and sleeve edges when you’re done.

12) Pin the bias binding all the way around the collar in this manner, pinning frequently – every 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Be sure to pull the t-shirt fabric tight so the binding will sit evenly once sewn.

13) Sew the bias binding in place. See that first fold line on the binding? Sew along that, as precisely as you possibly can. (Note: the pictures in the next couple steps are from a different shirt mod).

14) Fold the bias binding over to the inside of the shirt and pin it in place. Then sew along the outside of the shirt, following the line where binding meets t-shirt.

Because the binding is a bit longer on the inside, this will catch that inside layer and sew it in place. Of course, if you’re using single fold bias binding like I did on my white shirt (not the one pictured right here), this may be a bit finicky, in which case just sew down the middle of the bias binding.

15) Time for ruffles! They’re super easy. Take the sleeves you cut from the t-shirt and cut them open along their seam. Cut the hem off the sleeves. Now slice a wide (between 2 and 3 inches) strip from each sleeve.

16) Sew these two strips together at one of their short ends.

Do the same thing with the strips you cut from the sides of the shirt. Make sure both of your sewn-together strips are the same length. It doesn’t matter if the lines you cut are not exactly straight. When the ruffles are done, a bit of unevenness along their edges won’t be noticeable.

17) If you have one, use a special edge-stitching presserfoot (see picture) to finish all the raw edges of your fabric strips. Make sure you check your machine’s manual (if you have it) to find out what the proper settings are for this presserfoot. On my machine the tension is set to A, stitch width is at 5 (max), stitch type is zigzag and stitch length is just above the buttonhole setting.

This is the ideal. If you don’t have such a presserfoot you may want to invest in one, as they’re really useful and I’ll be using mine for more t-shirt mods later on. However, you should be able to replicate this reasonably well by setting your machine to a wide zigzag stitch and putting the stitch length on or very close to the buttonhole setting.

Whichever method you use, this is going to take a lot of thread, so make sure your bobbin isn’t running low when you start this step.

18) Going back to the normal presserfoot and using a straight, very long stitch (I set mine at 4, which is the max on my machine), sew a line down the middle of each fabric strip. Do Not backstitch at either end! When you cut the thread, leave several inches dangling from your fabric strips.

19) At either end of each strip, pull one of the threads gently so that the fabric bunches up along it. You have to do this at either end because of the seam in the middle.

These are your ruffles.

20) Pin each ruffle from the underarm seam of the arm hole around to the back. Mine weren’t long enough to go around the whole arm hole, so they end midway down on the back side of the shirt, which looks fine. You’ll want to pin the center line of the ruffle just this side of your arm hole’s hem lines.

Pin everything to make sure it’s the length you want it (adjust by pulling out some of the ruffle), then, when it’s as you want it, tie a knot in the threads dangling from either end of your ruffles and cut off the extra.

21) Sew along the center line of the ruffles.

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Ta da! Your weekend is now confirmed!

I had some extra material, so I made a little fabric rose. I was going to pin it on to the shirt at the shoulder or the hemline, but… well, it just looked really lame. So I turned it into a cute ring instead, by following the steps from my tutorial on felt flowers.

To make the rose part is also very simple:

1) Follow steps 15-21 to make a ruffle.

2) Fold your ruffle in half.

3) Begin rolling the ruffle up, hand stitching the bottom (folded) edges together as you go. Flip over when it’s completely rolled up, and you have a little fabric flower.

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As you read this, I’ll be at PAX in Seattle, further confirming my weekend and getting very little sleep but having a blast. More on that later. For now, either get crafting or, if you are also at PAX, stop by the LoadingReadyRun panel and say hello!

A few weeks ago I did a quick and easy tutorial for moustaches on a stick (which, if you didn’t know, are très à la mode these days as well as being great for a fast escape or some on-the-side spy work during your lunch break). Everything is, of course, better on a stick. Consider caramel apples, kebabs, those ginormous lollipops you were allowed to have like, once during your entire childhood and it was bigger than your head and you never quite finished it and the edges got all fuzzy but it was still pretty much the best thing ever. Stuff on a stick just rocks.

So. Moustaches. On sticks.

This is a tutorial for moustaches on a stick once again, but of a more convincingly hairy variety. Sort of akin to that fuzz on the giant lollipop, but in a more positive way, being as moustaches are supposed to be hairy.

You may want to do a quick readthrough of my other two tutorials involving needle felting before trying this one out. Or don’t, and just give it a shot, make it up as you go, and try not to stab yourself with the felting needles. Because ow.

What you’ll need:

• raw wool rovings in various moustache appropriate colours (Hint: pink is most definitely a moustache-appropriate colour)
• yarn or embroidery floss matching your wool colours
• thick foam (for doing your needle felting on top of)
• felting needles (Always good to have two, in case you break one. Also, they come helpfully in multiple sizes.)
• bamboo skewers (aka sticks)
• scissors
• hardened felt, or cardboard, or those sheets of rubbery foam they sell in dollar stores
• superglue
• spray fixitive OR hairspray
  

Putting it all together:

1) Start with a strip of wool roving a bit longer than you’d like your moustache to end up. You may want to mix a couple of colours together, or you can just use one.

2) Tie a piece of similarly coloured yarn or embroidery floss around the middle of your rovings. Trim the ends and, with a few stabs of the needle (Note: do this and all other needle felting on top of your thick foam), mix the ends in with the wool. This is the back side of your moustache.

3) Flip the roving over. From now on you will only felt from this side. Stab the wool repeatedly, getting it to felt together and take the shape you wish your moustache to have.

This is where you can check out those other needle felting tutorials for some tips and details on the process.

Don’t mess around too much with needle felting the tips of your moustache – we’ll use the hairspray to shape those bits later on.

4) Add a little more wool over the front of the moustache where the yarn shows. Tack it down with your needle to cover up the yarn.

5) Cut a piece of hardened felt or cardboard or dollar store foam stuff that is a bit narrower and a bit shorter than your moustache.

6) Apply superglue to one end of your bamboo skewer and place that end on one side of the back of your moustache. Then apply glue to your felt/cardboard/foam stuff cutout and place that on the back of the moustache overtop of the skewer. Press down. Allow to dry completely.

7) When the glue is dry, go outside and douse your moustache with spray fixitive or hairspray. This will allow you to shape the ends of the moustache – give them a twirl if you’d like – and to make the whole thing stay in place and keep its shape.

NOTE: Let the whole thing air out and dry before you “wear” it. The superglue/fixitive combo is more likely to give you a massive headache than any kind of high.

The thanks for this project goes to my mother, who tried out the technique in the first place. She and Rosco now both appear to be convinced that they’re Yosemite Sam.

The art of creating monsters is a varied one. For some people it’s as simple as a little drunken procreation. Others slave away in dripping cellars, stitching together bits of this cadaver and that one and waiting for a thunderstorm. But my method is quite different from both of these, and is clearly superior due to the involvement of brightly coloured felt.

Also, you can wear them.

What you’ll need:

• felt – two bright colours, a bit of black and a bit of white
• paper
• pen or pencil
• small circular objects to trace (use your thread bobbins)
• thread – white, black, and in two colours that match your bright felt colours
• scissors
• straight pins
• [optional] pin back or hair clip or hair barette

Putting it all together:

1) Find a circle of appropriate size (I use one about 1 1/4 inches across) and trace it onto a piece of paper.

Then fold the circle in half, and draw half of your monster (whatever you want that to look like) around it. Think about tentacles, tails, antenae, oozing pustules… it all depends on the sort of monster you want to make. If you want a tail or something else that only goes on one side, just cut it off one half of the paper once you unfold your template.

2) Cut out your paper template. Then pin it to two pieces of your main bright colour of felt and cut around the template.

Note: Keep the scraps from cutting out your monster!

3) Cut some smaller circles for the eye. One tiny black one for the pupil (I just freehand this one) one medium coloured one for the iris (from your other colour of felt) and one larger white one for the eyeball itself. Tracing the bottom of your thread bobbins works really well for this.

4) Grab your various colours of thread. Sew the black pupil to the coloured iris and the coloured iris to the white eyeball.

Last, take your white thread and make a couple of stitches on one side of the pupil to look like a bit of reflected light and give the eye some more depth and detail. Then sew the eyeball to one of the coloured monster cut-outs.

5) Take the scraps of felt you kept from step 2 (cutting out your monster) and cut them into tiny little pieces.

6) Now pin the two sides of your monster together and sew them up using small, even stitches. But don’t sew all the way around!

7) Before you finish sewing your monster’s two sides together, use the tiny cut up felt scraps to stuff the monster. Then sew the rest of the two sides together.

8) If you wish, sew a pin back or barette or hair clip to the back so you can pin or clip your monster to your bag, your head, etc. Or maybe sew him onto a headband.

• To sew a nice snap clip onto the back, put your snap clip down on a scrap of felt the same colour as your monster.
• Draw a line around the snap clip, a little ways away from the edge.
• Cut two of these, and cut a small slit at the thick end of one.
  
• Sew the non-slitted piece to the back of your monster.
• Stick the snap clip’s small skinny end through the slit on the other piece, then sew this other piece to the first one. Ta da!

9) Command your monster to stare at people on the bus, making them uncomfortable. Though frankly, they’re more likely to just coo over him. Or her, of course.

To make monstrously adorable finger puppets, simply leave the bottom end of your monster unsewn, and don’t stuff him.

Why do they make the gum stuff on envelopes taste so nasty? Are they worried about kids practicing substance abuse with envelopes? Because if so, I think that’s pretty unfair to all the kids who, like me, grew up in smaller towns in places like Kansas, where there aren’t hookers and blow on every corner and you have to make your own fun.

Anyway. The point here is that envelopes taste nasty when you lick ‘em shut. Which naturally leads to the conclusion that you should avoid that gross taste in your mouth by making your own envelopes. Also, it’s really easy to make envelopes. You’re kind of being suckered if you’re buying them from the store. Just saying.

There are 4 basic parts to an envelope: The body (front), the back, the closing flap and two tabs on the side of the body that hold back and front together. Just take an old envelope apart, stare at it for a minute, and you’ll pretty much know what to do.

What you’ll need:

• pen or pencil
• ruler or straight edge
• scissors
• paper (Used, upcycled paper is great for this. Try using old book pages, magazine pages, sheet music, maps, ads and brochures, scrapbooking paper or even plain old computer paper. The trick is just to make sure it’s strong to hold whatever you’ll be mailing. I don’t like construction paper because it weakens and tears easily along folds.)
• glue stick
• double sided tape (optional)

Making a template:

1) Decide how big you want your envelope to be. Then draw a square or rectangle that size. This will be the front of your envelope.

2) Draw two narrow rectangles (about 1/2 inch) along either side of the square or rectangle you just drew. These are the tabs that will hold the front and back of envelope together, making it an envelope.

3) Directly below the main square or rectangle, draw another square or rectangle of the same width, but slightly less high. This will be the back of the envelope.

4) Directly above the main square or rectangle, draw your envelope’s closing flap in whatever shape you want. Just make sure it’s the same width, of course. You can bring the flap to a point, make it a rounded flap, make it straight across, whatever.

5) Cut out the entire shape.

Other considerations: You may want to round or otherwise shape the corners of your side flaps, or of the envelope’s closing flaps, or of the back flap.

This is your envelope template. Trace it onto the piece of paper you want to make into an envelope, then follow these steps:

1) Cut out the envelope.

2) Make folds between the closing flap and the main body, the main body and the back flap, and the main body and the side flaps.

To make folding easier, especially with heavy paper, I use a ruler and a pen or pencil to make an indent along these lines before folding them. Don’t use scissors to make score lines as that might weaken the paper and cause the envelope to tear open. Just use a ball point pen and press down hard, or, if you don’t want visible lines, use the tip of a mechanical pencil without any lead sticking out.

3) Fold the side flaps inward and go over them with a glue stick.

4) Fold the back flap up, over the side flaps and press down until the glue holds everything in place.

5) (optional) Place a line or two of double sided tape on the inside edge of your closing flap. If you don’t have double sided tape you can just glue the envelope shut once you’ve filled and are ready to mail it.

6) If the paper used for your envelope is too dark or busy to write on, glue little rectangles of white or light-coloured paper on the front for the sending and return addresses.

That’s all there is to it. The real fun comes in making envelopes in unusual sizes or dimensions, making them out of really fun, unusual or funky paper, decorating them or personalizing them for whoever you’re sending them to. It’s one of the simplest crafts, it’s practical and useful, and it’ll keep those envelope-licking delinquents off the streets.

I like making cards, particularly cards that are a little different from everyone else’s. (Otherwise what’s the point – why not just buy someone else’s cards?)

I came up with the idea for this lacy kind of burlesque bodice card while thinking about pirates. Actually, I was making another card, a pirate card (see below), and I started to wonder what a really girly pirate card would look like. It’s not a direct line (my thinking never is), but that thought pattern turned into this card.

So, try it out! It’s wonderfully open ended; leave it blank and people can write as sweet and flowery or as racy and sexy a message as they wish. Just please don’t sell it. Cuz that’s, um, my thing. You’ll have to come up with your own sexy paper goods for that.

What you’ll need:

• a blank card (or cardstock to make one, and a matching envelope)
• pretty paper in 2 coordinating colours
• plain white or undesirably coloured printer paper or cardstock (for making your template)
• ribbon in a colour that goes with your two pretty papers
• a pen or pencil
• scissors
• a hole punch
• a good glue stick
• ruler
• clear nail polish
  
• a paper doily or some lace
• [optional] scrapbooking eyelets, an eyelet setting tool and a hammer

Putting it all together:

1) Make yourself a bodice template. It’s basically a rectangle with a downward curving line cut along one of the short ends.

2) Trace it onto one of your papers, flip it over and trace it again, and cut out these two shapes.

If you like, for some extra detail, take a marker and trace along the outside edge of the bodice shapes.

3) Using your ruler and pen or pencil, score a line about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in from the long edge of each rectangle.

4) Fold along this line.

5) Cut a strip of doily or lace the length of the top of your bodice pieces (minus the folded under bit).

6) Glue this doily/lace strip to the inside of each half of the bodice.

7) Set the bodice pieces aside and “distress” the front edges of your card. I do this with a stamp pad and a Q-tip.

8) When the glue on the bodice pieces is sufficiently dry, punch four evenly spaced holes along the shorter of the two long edges on each bodice half. Make sure the holes on one bodice piece line up with those on the other piece.

9) [optional] Using your eyelet setting tool and hammer, fasten eyelets to each hole.

10) Glue the folded-under flaps to the front of your card, leaving a gap in the middle between the two bodice pieces.

11) Cut a square from your other fancy paper. It should be about 1/2 inch to 1 inch less wide than your card. (I cut the top edge of this square with fancy patterned scissors for another nice bit of detail.)

12) Glue this square inside the flaps of the bodice.

13) Taking your ribbon, lace it through the holes in either side of the bodice and tie it in a bow at the top.

14) Put a bit of clear nail polish on the ribbon ends to keep them from fraying.

15) Ta-da! Inscribe sweetly innocent or terribly racy message inside, as desired.

So my blog post is late this week. *GASP OF HORROR* Well, I’m pretty horrified, but I did have a good reason for not doing it yesterday: I was out in the woods climbing trees and swinging from bits of rope 45 feet in the air in celebration of a friend’s birthday. Seriously. And it was awesome. And my abs totally hurt now.

Not that I couldn’t have written this post earlier in the week. So really it comes down to me being lazy and unorganized. Plus I was busy making my friend’s birthday gift. And rescuing orphans from burning buildings, which went fine until I had to get their sweet little kitten down from a tree across the street, at which point I tore my cape on a branch, so I had to spend some time later mending it. And there were some tree sap stains as well, and those are a bitch to get out.

In case you hadn’t noticed, today’s post is the third offering in my series of t-shirt modifications. I bought this shirt because how could I not?!?? And then my mom came for a visit and she helped me modify it. So today’s post is a team effort by myself and my endlessly creative, effortlessly talented and stupefyingly clever mother, and you will love it. <3

*This utterly awesome shirt is from Snorg Tees, and you can find it here.

What you will need:

• a t-shirt - either start with one that is already a good fit, or you can use this basic tutorial to make it more fitted
• fabric scissors
• pen or pencil
• straight pins
• sewing machine
• bias binding – in a colour that matches, compliments or contrasts appealingly with your t-shirt

Putting it all together:

1) Start by laying your t-shirt out flat, right side out. Notice how the cloth of the t-shirt is, essentially, folded in half right now. The back and front of the shirt make a double layer of fabric lying on the table.

2) Fold the t-shirt “in half” in this same manner, but so that the folds run down the middle of the front and the middle of the back. The sleeves should be in about the middle of either side of the shirt.

3) Pin both sides of the shirt together at the shoulder, in two or three places along the shirt’s collar, under the arm and in two or three places along the fold on the shirt’s front.

4) Decide how low a scoop you want to have in the front. In my case, this was largely determined by the printing on the t-shirt. Make a pencil mark at this point along the front fold of the shirt, and another mark at the shoulder. If you want to widen the neckline from side to side, as I did, make the shoulder mark out a few inches from the t-shirt’s collar.

5) Draw a curving line from one mark to the other.

6) Decide how low a scoop you want to have in the back. (It may be a good idea to decide this based on where your bra sits, and put the scoop just above that. Keep in mind that if you make the scoop too low you will have to put crisscross straps on the back in order to keep the shirt in place.) Now make a pencil mark at the desired low point of the scoop along the back fold, and another mark at the shoulder, matching up with the shoulder mark from the front of the shirt.

7) Draw a curving line from one mark to the other.

8) Cut along these lines on the front and the back.

At this point, depending on where exactly you drew and cut your lines, your shirt should look similar to this:

And the piece you’ve cut out of the shirt will look similar to this:

9) Make sure your shirt is still right side out. Take your bias binding and unfold it completely. Now fold over one end of the binding and pin it up against the edge of the new collar line.

Important notes:

• a) Notice how, when the bias binding is folded in half lengthwise, one side is slightly longer than the other. You will want this longer edge to be on the inside of the shirt. Therefor, the shorter edge is the one you want to pin along the collar’s edge in this step.

• b) Be sure the shirt is right side out, and that you are pinning the binding to the outside of the t-shirt – as in the side that has all the printing and such on it! This may seem a bit odd, but it will work out perfectly, trust me.

10) Pin the bias binding all the way around the collar in this manner, pinning frequently – every 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Be sure to pull the t-shirt fabric tight so the binding will sit evenly once sewn.

11) Sew the bias binding in place. See that first fold line on the binding? Sew along that, as precisely as you possibly can.

12) Fold the bias binding over to the inside of the shirt and pin it in place.

13) Keeping the shirt right side out, sew the now-folded bias binding in place. You will do this by sewing just inside the line where the bias binding and t-shirt fabric meet. Or, if you are able, sew exactly along that meeting line for the neatest possible finished look; the stitches will be nearly invisible.

14) Iron your shirt’s new collar, getting the bias binding to sit as flat as you can. Depending on how tightly you did or didn’t pin it, it may curl outwards a bit. Some of this effect will wear off with washing.

Your shirt should currently look something like this.

Now, at this point, you can stop. Leave the sleeves as they are and enjoy your new shirt. Or, especially with a shirt like this, a bit of bias binding sewn as trim around part of the sleeve may create a really neat look. Here are a couple of options:

If you’re like me and prefer to be sleeveless in the summer, follow these next steps:

15) Turn the shirt inside out and cut off the sleeves, cutting right along the inside of the seam. If you want, you can cut along this same curved line a little further in, to narrow your shirt straps. But I found that, since I’d widened the collar a fair bit on my shirt, this wasn’t necessary.

16) Follow steps 9-14, but putting the bias binding around the sleeve edges this time.

17) If (like me) you didn’t pin your bias binding tightly enough, it may bunch out a bit, especially under the arms. To fix this, just pinch the binding to the inside at one or two points under the arm and handstitch these little darts in place. And again, the binding should soften up a bit with washing and sit better.

That’s it! You now have a simple summer shirt that looks considerably more feminine and interesting than just your average t-shirt.

If you cut your scoop in the back quite low, or if you just want something more interesting back there, try putting some cute little criss-crossing straps back there. Here’s an example of this on a similar shirt my mom modified:

Notice she’s also done some insets in the waist area to help bring the shirt in while adding interest, and a fringe along the collar. I may have tutorials for these up later on. Or maybe she’ll write some for me…

James Bond, Peter Parker or any competent six-year old can tell you that disguises are very important. You never know when you’re going to encounter monsters, evil masterminds or your mother calling you in for your bath. It’s critical never to be caught unprepared.

Also, you may have to be one person one moment, then turn around and be someone else five seconds later, so it’s important to have a disguise that, while brilliantly concealing, can be quickly removed and stashed behind your back.

And some of you will be familiar with Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler’s insistence that everything is better on a stick.

All this must certainly be the reasoning behind the sudden popularity of the moustache on a stick. Really, it is a crucial accessory that one should not leave the house without. Here is probably the easiest and nearly cheapest way to make yourself one.

What You’ll Need:

• felt in a moustache colour of your choice
• stiff felt or cardboard (like, for example, a piece of cereal box)
• bamboo kabab skewer
• superglue
• pen
  
• scissors

1) Draw your moustache onto the cardboard or stiff felt. You can draw it onto a piece of paper first, if you like. If you want it to be exactly the same on both sides, draw it on a piece of paper, fold the paper down the middle of the moustache and cut it out. Like cutting out a paper heart. Except that it’s a moustache.

2) Cut out the cardboard/stiff felt moustache.

3) Trace this onto your moustache-coloured felt, and cut that out.

4) Glue the cardboard/stiff felt moustache onto the back of the soft felt moustache.

5) Put a glob of glue on one side of the back of the moustache and place one end of the bamboo skewer in the glue.

6) Cut a small rectangle of felt and glue it overtop of the skewer to help keep it in place. You’ll want to hold it tightly down for a moment till the glue sets.

7) Practice conveying a subtle air of mystery.

Other Ideas:

Try making a set of bushy eyebrows, or perhaps a gotee on a stick!

What with your iPod or your iPhone or even your non Apple brand mp3 player (I hear that some people have those??), you sure don’t need to carry around cassettes, but they’re kind of fun to remember fondly. Here’s a project that combines the charm of such an outdated piece of technology with different functionality – notebooks!

What You’ll Need:

• cardstock (black, white, brown and possibly a bright colour)
• scissors
• pen/pencil
• gluestick
  
• coloured markers
• silver paint pen or sharpie
• blank or lined printer weight paper
  
• a paper cutter

Putting It Together:

1) Make your template. Mine is based off the size of an actual cassette tape. You can draw your own, or print and cut out the templates in the pdf I’ll attach below.

cassette tape templates

You need two rectangles (2 1/2 by 4 inches), one smaller rectangle with the top corners rounded and a round-ended rectangle cut out of its middle, two small circles (about 1/2 inch across), one small rectangle (about 1 inch by 1/2 inch), and one rectangular shape with inward-slanting ends – that center bit along the bottom of the cassette.

2) Trace the components of your template onto the various paper colours and cut out.

Here’s a tip for getting really neat lines when cutting with scissors: use the back of the blades. Do your cutting towards the back of the scissors, closest to the handle, and you’ll have more control and get cleaner lines.

3) Take your silver sharpie and draw a line around the edge of each piece A and of piece B, and also of each small circle (piece E). I use this technique a lot with my cards and other paper crafts. I find it gives a nice definition to the edges of things. Just run the tip of your marker carefully beside the edge of your paper, bumping up along the edge.

Do the same in a complimenting colour with piece C.

4) Take piece D and trace it onto your brown paper. Draw a slightly curved line across either end of the rectangle, then cut out these two ends.

5) Glue the brown shapes onto piece D. For detail, draw some fine pen lines on the brown paper to imitate  lines of wound up tape.

6) Take your two piece Es and draw six little silver rectangles from the edges, facing inward, at evenly spaced intervals.

7) Glue piece B to the bottom center of one of piece A. Glue piece C above it. Glue pieces D and E into place.

8) It’s all about the details: using a dark pen, draw a small “A” box on the top left of the cassette, with 2 or 3 lines across the top of the tape. Using your silver pen, draw small circles and rectangles on piece B, as shown.

9) Using your paper cutter, cut a stack of printer-weight paper the same size as piece A – 2 1/2 by 4 inches. Stack this paper between both piece As (front and back cover).

10) Take your pages and covers to a print shop to have them bound. I simply got the print shop to punch the holes for me, since I already had coil binding at home, recycled from old notebooks and calendars.

Be sure to explain to the print shop employee exactly which edge you want to have bound. They have a ton of things on the go for customers at any given time, and lack of clarity on your part might lead them to punch the wrong side. As happened here. Not that it’s a BIG deal, just kind of a pain.

They may also have to bind the short edge, depending on their machine. The print shop I used was unable to bind the top long edge of my cassette notebooks, as this made the paper too short for them to feed into the machine. So there may be that limitation.

You can do the hole punching yourself, by tracing an old spiral bound page and punching holes in the appropriate spots. You’ll have to repeat for every few pages though. This is what, in technical crafting terms, is known as a massive pain in the ass. I’d just use the print shop.

And enjoy! Write yourself some old-school notes.

Flowers are in. Very in. Perhaps it’s merely the season, or the never-do-anything-truly-new-just-recycle-every-20-years laws of fashion. Or perhaps a world so full of little black and white iPhones is craving colour. Whatever the reason, I love this trend. Unlike neon leg warmers, it’s a good one. (C’mon, even Barbie never truly pulled those off.)

I’m going to show you a quick and easy way of making colourful flowers that have some volume and punch. Use them to decorate your hair, your clothes, your fingers, a wrapped gift, whatever you can think of. Please do leave the cat alone, though.

What You’ll Need:

• paper (of thickish, cardstock weight is best)
• a pen
• 5 coins (all the same denomination. Such as 5 pennies, 5 quarters, etc.)
• felt in one or two colours. Maybe a bit of green for leaves, if you like.
• fabric scissors
• a needle
• thread - preferably that matches the colour of your felt

1) Place your 5 coins in a circle on your paper (there will be some space in the middle) and hold them in place while tracing around them. This is your flower template. Use different coins for different sizes of flower. You can draw the petals in to points, or leave them rounded.

2) Cut out your template.

3) Placing the template on your felt, trace four individual flowers and cut them out.

3.5) [optional] Cut one slightly larger flower from another colour of felt.

4) Thread your needle, knot the end of the thread, and set it aside.

5) Take one of the four flowers and fold it in half, but NOT so that the sides match up. You want the petals on one half to line up roughly with the indents between petals on the other half.

6) Take a second flower, fold it the same way, and place it perpendicular to the first flower, with half of it overlapping. The straight folded edges should face inward.

Basically, you’re going to overlap all four folded flowers the way you would a box lid if you wanted to close it flat without taping it down. If that helps.

7) Fold a third flower in half, place it parallel to the first flower, overlapping the second flower.

8) Fold the fourth flower in half and place one end overtop of the third flower, the other end underneath the first flower.

Make any sense at all? If not, my apologies, that’s what the pictures are for. It’s way clearer visually than verbally, but all and all it’s pretty straightforward.

9) Sew the four flowers together by stitching an X and then a square around the centre of the circle of flowers.

9.5 [optional] Take your other, slightly larger flower and sew it to the bottom of your four-sectioned flower.

10) Sew a bead, a button, a felted ball, or whatever else you can think of to the center of the flower.

Voila, that’s it! No hemming and no fraying, since it’s felt. Also because it’s felt it will have more volume and oomph than other fabric flowers. A little more oomph is never a bad thing.

Add some green felt leaves if you like. Sew your flower onto a bobby pin, hair clip, barrette or elastic.

Or if you’re like me and have really short hair, make the flower into a ring and wear it on your hand. You can do this by getting some thick wire,  putting a little loop in each end with some needlenose pliers (so it doesn’t poke through the felt), and sewing the wire into a long rectangular band of felt.

Then attach that to the base of your flower and you have one-size-fits-most flower bling.

Felt is basically made by mashing a bunch of wool fibers together until they become one big mass. There are a couple different techniques for doing this, one involving hot soapy water and one involving sharp stabby needles. Each has its advantages, and today’s post will explain how to use each of these methods to make simple felt beads, leaving you to practice and then move on to make felted scale models of the Starship Enterprise, or whatever your preference may be.

Below are instructions for wet felting and needle felting. Wet felting tends to be a bit faster, but you have to wait for the felt to dry before using it. It’s also a great craft for kids to try. Needle felting has the advantage of being able to manipulate the wool into different shapes and add more fibers in order to enlarge and detail your felt object. However, it involves the danger of stabbing a very sharp, barbed needle through your finger. Definitely not for kids.

[Retroactive Note: I have just learned that merino wool is particularly amenable to wet felting, giving you a smoother result than other coarser fibers. Merino actually wet felts better than it needle felts, though you can still use it for either.]

Both of these felting techniques are hugely popular right now, as part of the general interest in getting back to old-school, earth-friendly, historically charged activities. Felt has been around since perhaps 6300 BC, and the process of wet felting pre-dates spinning, weaving and knitting. So get ready for some deeply historical, all-natural crafting while you read through these instructions on your iPad or laptop or ancient, historical iMac.

Wikipedia describes wet felting as a process “where the natural wool fibre is stimulated by friction and lubricated by moisture.” Sexy, huh? And it really is that simple – you’re just creating friction to get everything to knot together. Just like Bob from Accounting does at the office.

What You’ll Need

• wool rovings (these are bits of combed and carded wool that have otherwise been left un-processed. You can get wool rovings at some craft stores and many knitting and yarn stores. Here in Victoria we have a whole store dedicated to wool, and there are many places to buy wool rovings online. The most common and inexpensive is corriedale wool, which comes from New Zealand sheep. You can also use other fibers, such as silk. Rovings come dyed in just about every colour of the rainbow.)
• a dish or hand towel
• small bowl of cold water
• small bowl of hot soapy water (no special soaps needed – dish or liquid hand soap work just fine for this)

1) Lay out one of your towels with the two bowls of water on top. Divide your wool rovings into bits – different sized bits for different sized beads.

A couple quick notes here: it’s very difficult with wet felting to add more wool to an existing bead to make it bigger. So whatever size bead you get, that’s the size of bead you have. You can always try to compress it more to make it smaller.

Also, you do not need to cut wool rovings. Put one hand on the end of the roving, and the other hand several inches along the roving. Pull. It should come apart easily, and if it doesn’t, just move your hands a bit farther apart and try again. Then you can pull these pieces apart lengthwise to get smaller bundles of wool.

2) Roll a piece of roving into a tight ball and dip it in the hot soapy water, getting it wet through. Mash it between your fingers a bit without letting it out of it’s balled up form. Really make sure you wind the rovings as tightly as possible, and keep it tight throughout all these steps. This will give you a smoother, more uniform surface.

3) Roll the wool between the palms of your hands, pressing in hard. Same technique you’d use to form a ball of play-dough. Continue to do this for probably 30 seconds to a minute. Dip back into the soapy water as necessary. You want the felt to be wet and soapy, but not too soapy, or it won’t cling together. Some practice and experimenting will help you find the right balance. And I find the total time for making each bead is between 1 and 3 minutes, depending on the bead’s size and how much rolling it needs.

4) Dip the felt ball into the cold water and squeeze it to get cold water into all the fibers. Then squeeze the water out. This is shrinking the fibers and helping them hold together.

5) Set the bead down on the towel to dry, and continue making more beads. They’ll need to sit for 12 to 24 hours to dry out completely.

Needle Felting

What You’ll Need:

• wool rovings
• a foam pad about 4 to 6 inches across and 2-3 inches thick, or a couple pieces of thinner foam you can stack and tape together
• felting needles (Again, you can find these in some craft stores, in yarn and wool shops and in many sewing or fabric stores. They are longer than a normal needle, with a little tab at the top, and small notches in the bottom. They’re very sharp. And get at least two, because when you’re first trying out needle felting you’ll probably break a couple needles getting the feel for the technique.)

Notes: See my notes in the wet felting segment about how to divide wool rovings. You can also read my post on felted bacon bracelets for some more details on needle felting, and the idea of combining needle and wet felting techniques.

1) Depending on your foam, cut and stack and tape it together if needed to create a foam pad on which to do your needle felting. This protects the surface of your desk or table, keeps you from breaking your needle, and provides a surface with a bit of give, which you need for needle felting.

2) Roll some wool into a ball.

3) Holding it together, start stabbing it with the needle. Jab over the whole surface, evenly, to get all the fibers to stick together and take shape. Note that the more tightly you roll your rovings in the first place, the less stabbing work you’ll have to do. You’re also going to lose size here, so your unfelted rolled ball will shrink, probably by a quarter to a third of its original size.

THE #1 RULE OF NEEDLE FELTING: NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE NEEDLE. Stabbing yourself through the finger with one of these is not fun. Trust me. It really really hurts. Don’t do it.

4) Continue. Seriously, that’s all there is to this. Stab all over until the felt is as compressed as possible (it can end up just about as hard as a marble, though much lighter, of course).

To shape an object, add felt or stab more in one area to compress it. For example, to make a strawberry, start by making a sphere. Then add more felt to one half and stab it down with the needle. On the other half of the sphere, do extra stabbing to compress the felt and make it smaller. Now you have a strawberry shape – tapered at one end and round and fat at the other.

So obviously you can make different shapes of beads using this technique – round, oval, squared, etc. Or berry-shaped.

Needle felting is mostly about practicing until you get a feel for manipulating the wool and getting the shapes you want. Start simple and work your way up to more complicated shapes.

Using your felt beads

As I mentioned earlier, felt is great because it’s so lightweight. You can make earrings, necklaces, bracelets, garlands, ornaments and more with your felt beads. Experiment and see what you can come up with.

Because these beads are felt, you can sew into them. So use one of those bead holer things (what the heck are they called, anyway??) to make holes in your beads, or just string some thread or yarn onto a needle and push it through your beads. Make really big beads and embroider on them, or sew little seed beads on. You can also sew felted objects onto other things, using them as the buttons or eyes on a plush object, or the head on a finger puppet or doll, etc. There are endless possibilities.

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting crafts that incorporate needle felting to make some part of the finished product. It’s a wonderful technique for using with a huge variety of projects.